If a woodchuck could ride a bike, just how much power would it take for that woodchuck to be mediocre as a cat 3 bike racer?

04 November 2009

2009 October 31, Surf City #2, Watsonville, C Race

TSB: 6CTL: 112

Every once in a while waiting at the starting line of a race, one can hear the pfssst sound of a deflating inner tube. Today it was my turn with Mike our race starter telling us we had one minute to go. Resigned myself to trying to convince the registration folks to let me change my race category to B when Mike Valencia and Steve DeLong both offered me a wheel. Since Matthew might need his rear spare during the race, I accepted Steve's wheel. We got the wheel changed in less than a minute and the C field graciously let me back into the start grid where I was on the second row. The winner of the Soquel race, Steve, and someone else took off through the finish area when I remembered I had a bike set up for nine speed with a ten speed rear wheel. I could only get it to stay in the 12, the middle one - 18?, and the 25. What seemed to work best for me with a flattish course with one set of barriers and some wide open straightaways was the 44/12. Managed to stay close to the front set of riders until I took a right hander on the hardpack through the horse stalls a little too fast and hit the ground really hard.

Most of the damage was to me and I was able to hop back on the bike and try to catch back up. It was sort of like racing on a single speed, but I would have chosen a smaller gear for a single speed race! Could not keep up the accelerations after a lap and managed a mid pack finish. Post race my legs were extremely sore from the big gear grinding and the crash.

A fun race in spite of the equipment trouble and crash.

No data since I wasn't using a Powertap rear, and no video because I didn't carry the camera, forgot to charge the batteries.